Ivy

I love ivy grown up trees. English ivy is dark, evergreen and macabre. It lends an elegiac, Hubert Robert sort of melancholy to the scene. When I die, I want a grave marked with a slate headstone in a country cemetery with black locust trees clothed in ivy. Wrought iron fences, bearded iris, yuccas on a lawn that goes brown in the summer. I imagine an atmosphere of dereliction that invites reverie and mischief.

Boston ivy is another story. It is bright and glossy and shimmers in the breeze. In high summer it drapes from branches in great luxuriant swags. It turns a vibrant crimson in autumn.

Ivy does not hurt the trees. Some people get upset when they see ivy in trees, but they should realize that they grown together in nature and that a bit of ivy does no harm.